In our last blog post we talked about the true cost of a bad hire and employee retention. But, what if you hire the right person – someone with the right mix of technical skills and culture fit, only to see them leave after a brief time? An annual study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Globoforce, a human capital management software company, reports that a staggering 47 percent of the 738 human resource leaders surveyed say that employee retention and turnover is their top workforce management challenge.
With a growing workforce of gig workers, job hoppers and millennials, many medium- and large-size companies are being forced to get creative when it comes to retaining employees for the long haul. It has become vital for HR Managers to also be culture keepers of their organization, managing and improving everything from how employees are recognized for their efforts to how life events are celebrated inside the office walls. According to the report, “Company culture is being re-imagined to drive greater business impact and bring more humanity to everyone’s experience at work.”
Hire for Today AND Tomorrow
The key to retention is finding someone who will excel in the role you are hiring them for, but who will also be happy down the road. Will he or she want a challenge? If so, can you provide that to them now and in the distant future? What about boredom? Is the job one that encompasses many responsibilities or is it somewhat repetitive? Understanding how your candidate thrives before you hire them will ensure they are truly the right fit not just now, but several years into the job.
While it is true that maintaining the right culture is critical to attracting and retaining quality employees, not to mention overall happiness in the workplace, it is also true that hiring the right candidate from the start is important to ensuring he or she sticks around. Rather than adapting your company culture to fit those you hire, think about recruiting candidates who will excel within your existing company culture and thrive within the role you hired them for.
A Search Process That Guarantees Results
If you are an HR, talent acquisition or hiring manager responsible for recruiting executive-level talent for your organization, employing a repeatable search process that uses competency and behavioral-based interviewing will enable you to really identify more than the technical skills of a candidate. Understanding what makes a candidate happy and how they thrive in the work environment will guarantee they excel long-term at your organization and improve overall retention.
Interestingly, recruitment challenges follow as the second-biggest concern cited in the SHRM and Globoforce study. Most internal HR managers do not have the capacity (they are busy being the cultural keepers of their company after all) or the skills to really devote to a multi-step search process. Executive search firms like Torch Group make it their job to recruit candidates who share the same company values and can perform the technical aspects of the job.
These are just a sampling of emerging hiring trends we will continue to see in 2018. We will continue to highlight emerging trends in executive search on our blog so be sure to check Pass the Torch regularly!